Google Reportedly Plans to Update Play Store Guidelines to Emphasize Use of Its Billing System With 30% Fee

[Wowfunhappy]

What Appstore and Play do is reduce the threats and eliminate the intimidation, which opens up more wallets.

The problem with Google Play is there's no manual approval process, just an automated check. So, basically a souped-up virus scan. I'm not convinced it's that significantly safer than side-loading.

But, I generally agree that the iOS App Store is great! If e.g. Epic wants to release a competing store, they will need to do a lot of work to create a convenient and trustworthy experience.

But, I also want Epic to have that opportunity, because competition is good for consumers. The lack of competition on iOS gives Apple carte blanche to engage in bad practices, like charging less for subscriptions than for one-time payments, because Apple has decided that business model will generate more revenue for them in the long run.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Edit: Oops, sorry for the double post!

But, the fact that Epic HASN’T done it on Android is telling. To me, that would be the NUMBER ONE indicator of what they would do on the iPhone if given the opportunity.

Cory Doctorow was on the This Week in Tech podcast a few weeks ago, and he said something that has stuck with me. I'm paraphrasing from memory, but it went something like:

I've worked with a lot of whistle-blowers, and none of them have ever had clean hands. It's never just that their boss is corrupt—it's that their boss is corrupt, and they got passed over for a promotion, or didn't get paid. I still want to hear from them, and I will still support them, because there's no other way for these facts to come to light.

I consider the locked down nature of the iPhone a serious threat for free expression. Look at what happened with HKMaps.live, where the Chinese government was able to pressure Apple to pull a critical app for Hong Kong protesters from the App Store. This wasn't a problem for protesters with Android phones, who just downloaded the app from elsewhere, but the iPhone's single point-of-entry made it easy for the government to block software they didn't like.

I am certain that Epic doesn't care about any of that. But if they want to fight this fight, I say good for them. No one else seems to have both the will and the resources.

 

[iStorm]

I feel like this 30% cut would be less of an issue if in-app purchases weren't a thing. The 30% makes sense when purchasing an app since Apple/Google is doing the heavy lifting...hosting the app on their servers, surfacing it through the store, review system, etc.

Now with in-app purchases, a majority of them are just for buying coins, unlocking features, or downloading assets from the developer's server. Apple/Google really isn't doing much here other than handling the money. I can see 30% seems a little steep for that. Imagine credit card companies charging businesses a 30% fee for them to be able to swipe customer's cards.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't really make sense to lower the cut for in-app purchases, because then apps would just be free (to avoid the 30% cut) and have an in-app purchases to unlock it for a lower cut.

 

[Timster83]

I'm curious to see whether Apple increases the price for Apple Music signups on Android, or whether they absorb the 30%.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I feel like this 30% cut would be less of an issue if in-app purchases weren't a thing. The 30% makes sense when purchasing an app since Apple/Google is doing the heavy lifting...hosting the app on their servers, surfacing it through the store, review system, etc.

Now with in-app purchases, a majority of them are just for buying coins, unlocking features, or downloading assets from the developer's server. Apple/Google really isn't doing much here other than handling the money. I can see 30% seems a little steep for that. Imagine credit card companies charging businesses a 30% fee for them to be able to swipe customer's cards.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't really make sense to lower the cut for in-app purchases, because then apps would just be free (to avoid the 30% cut) and have an in-app purchases to unlock it for a lower cut.

The problem is, developers can then bypass the store with a simple IAP. What I really hate about the mobile software market is that many take the Freemium approach, which takes a simple one time purchase and turns it into a never-ending dump of smaller transactions. Maybe some of this is incidental based on these Appstore policies (no trials/demos), but it leads me to avoid many software options because of the business model employed.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I consider the locked down nature of the iPhone a serious threat for free expression.

If it was impossible for anyone to purchase any other phone than an iPhone, or if an iPhone was required for any and all communications, then I’d enter into a conversation around it being a threat for free expression. BUT, there are myriad ways to communicate that exist OUTSIDE the iPhone. And, there are VERY VERY good reasons why the number 1 deployed mobile OS is Android. If your use case includes the requirement to install any app from anywhere (and you feel you can trust the source providing those apps), specifically on a mobile connected type device, then the choice MUST be Android or any of the other non-Apple OS’s (which, again completely destroy the marketshare of Apple OS’s).

 

[Shirasaki]

I seriously doubt epic game, Spotify etc. intention is to take a free ride on App Store without paying Apple a cent. I also wonder what would happen if Amazon refuses to put apps in iOS but instead embraces their own android based ecosystem. If it is not for Amazon, I don’t think Apple would negotiate a 15% cut instead of 30%. As for PR? Marketing? I don’t Fante about any and all of those bs. They are all lies anyways.

History has no “what if”, and we will never know what’s going on if App Store never existed. It’s just sad that people forget how some stuff came from in the first place. I also feel horrified to see in USA, business can literally do whatever they want without any consequences, especially when they grow past a certain size.

As for Google play store, as long as side loading is possible, People will be fine, until when it is no longer possible.

 

[russell_314]

Apples and Oranges. And I do believe you can sell your products in Walmart. And I also believe Walmart customers have the choice to get their products from Walmart as well as various other merchants.
Try again.

You can sell your products at Walmart. They get huge cut too. I forgot Apple is the only company to make a phone. I keep thinking there’s other brands like Samsung or LG etc. Silly me 😂

 

[Allwrong]

If I were Apple this is what I would do. Allow side loading for those that want to but void the warranty. Im not saying the walled garden has been perfect. There have been plenty of rotten apps that have slipped by Apple but if you really want this free for all system than you pay the price for any malware/virus and if your phone gets bricked you can always buy another one. Ok bring on the 👎 lol

 

[Unregistered 4U]

As for Google play store, as long as side loading is possible, People will be fine,

It’s not fine for Epic, though. Epic could create their own store on Android if they wanted. But, that’s hard to do, so rather than do that, they want to complain about the 30% that Google takes for being on the Google Play Store.

 

[alex2792]

WTF? Are they trying to get sued For antitrust?

 

[Darth Tulhu]

We're still arguing about this, I guess.

Apple built the iPhone, and the App Store to make money. Not to make us happy. Not to make it easy for us to do X, Y, or Z.

Apple does not control ALL app stores, or all devices. They ONLY control Apple-branded ones THEY built.

Thus it is not either unethical or monopolitical for them to charge 30% (or whatever they want to) to WHOMEVER to use their platforms.

Don't like it? Feel free to use something else. "Free to". Keywords.

Feel free to build your own platform, and/or build your own appstore.

And hopefully, the idiots will not ask the idiots in the government to tell you how to make money off of what YOU built.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

You want an ancient tech analog headphone jack? stay with the old model. I don't understand, everybody always "has to have the latest greatest" then they complain that it is not like the old one anymore.

Where do you come up with this crap? It's not money for free, do you have even the slightest clue what it costs to run that backend? servers, storage, electric for equipment and air conditioning. It's not tax, it's cost of running a business. I work in a professional video editing environment and our video servers and storage are "EOL'd" (end of life) every 5 ish years. Our measly 750TB of of high speed (10GB/s) on optical fiber costs $105k for 100TB and has to be kept at 68 degrees. Amazon has to have Exebytes of storage for all of the app store and infrastructure. That has to cost millions of dollars a year...then you have staff engineers to maintain and support it.

Everybody needs to stop with money for free crap.

I would love a headphone jack on an iPhone. I HATE that Apple removed it.

That said, I also believe it is Apple's RIGHT to do WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT with their hardware.

Why? Because I am always free to NOT BUY IT.

That, my friend, is what the people raging against the Apple (or Google) machine fail to understand.

And I agree with your assessment of the infrastructure required to run the App Store.

However, even if it cost NOTHING it would still be irrelevant, because it is Apple who built it. So Apple can charge whatever they want to those that want to use it in whatever way Apple and only Apple deems fit.

At least in the US anyone, ANYONE is free to do the same (build + charge, that is). At least for now.

But that'll soon be gone if the idiots win.

 

[Stromos]

Do you think a company like Epic that has made billions doesn’t understand where they get their money from?

Some people here act like apple’s payment system is something new and revolutionary. Consumers have been buying things online for decades now. They’ve done just fine entering credit card info or paypal. There a lot of well established and reputable payment processing services available for use by online businesses.

Is apple’s system convenient for the user? Sure. Is it convenient enough to keep them using it if there are discounts in an alternative? Nope.

Yes completely ignore the fact that while there are decent payment services there's a million more that aren't. Telling anyone that giving their credit card to more companies is beneficial to them is a complete joke. There is a whole population of people that buy temporary card numbers and prepaid cards to protect themselves. Big hint its because they have been burned one too many times.

I have zero interest in giving Epic or Joe Blow developer my banking info. I have zero interest in making it easier for them to prevent me from canceling a service or refuting a charge. The benefit is to the company not the end user.

Epic still uses Google Play store even though they could make their own appstore. Guess what it boils down to convenience and trust.

Why people are applauding that they want iOS 15 to install the Amazon Appstore, Epic Store, Microsoft Store, Wallmart Store and have to give all these compaines their banking information because I garuentee they will need a card on file even for free apps is completely astounding to me. Oh I need to update apps let me launch six appstores to get all my updates.

Don't get me started on how most companies will just block third party appstores out the gate.

In a completely different train of thought I wonder how many of these companies would make an appstore available in a GDPR country? You know where if you want to be the keeper of PCI data and you screw up you're going to have a bad day and lose any financial benefit in one breach. Lets not forget even if you use joe blow card processor you are responsible for their security as well under GDPR.

I would love to see this country put laws in place that if you want to go around Apple or Android and have your own store and you get breached that it's automatically a more severe punishment/fine because you took a risk for financial benefit. Bet Epic would shut up real fast....

 

[psingh01]

Yes completely ignore the fact that while there are decent payment services there's a million more that aren't. Telling anyone that giving their credit card to more companies is beneficial to them is a complete joke. There is a whole population of people that buy temporary card numbers and prepaid cards to protect themselves. Big hint its because they have been burned one too many times.

I have zero interest in giving Epic or Joe Blow developer my banking info. I have zero interest in making it easier for them to prevent me from canceling a service or refuting a charge. The benefit is to the company not the end user.

Epic still uses Google Play store even though they could make their own appstore. Guess what it boils down to convenience and trust.

Why people are applauding that they want iOS 15 to install the Amazon Appstore, Epic Store, Microsoft Store, Wallmart Store and have to give all these compaines their banking information because I garuentee they will need a card on file even for free apps is completely astounding to me. Oh I need to update apps let me launch six appstores to get all my updates.

Don't get me started on how most companies will just block third party appstores out the gate.

In a completely different train of thought I wonder how many of these companies would make an appstore available in a GDPR country? You know where if you want to be the keeper of PCI data and you screw up you're going to have a bad day and lose any financial benefit in one breach. Lets not forget even if you use joe blow card processor you are responsible for their security as well under GDPR.

I would love to see this country put laws in place that if you want to go around Apple or Android and have your own store and you get breached that it's automatically a more severe punishment/fine because you took a risk for financial benefit. Bet Epic would shut up real fast....

If you don’t want to pay using some other payment service then don’t. You and everyone else already make that choice all the time when buying things through a website. There is nothing wrong with choosing not to use a service. I would rather have that choice than no choice at all.

 

[Nilhum]

Isn't the idea of the Apple tax or google tax the same as taxes that people have to pay to keep roads, military, schools, etc funded for functional society? I don't see the issue. Of course, the percentage is a high flat fee and perhaps Apple and Google should think of cutting it.

 

[ohmydays]

The headphone jack wasn’t about technology, the port is ubiquitous and is still very much in use. It was always about accessories. I would bet the house that the AirPods were in the pipeline at that point, and it was more about incentivizing the purchase of those more than it was about “courage.”

But it is literally money for nothing. A lot of those in app purchases are on the developer side. The developers are needing to pay salaries, overhead, extra costs, server space, bandwidth, etc.

Is Apple hosting all of Spotify’s music too? How can Spotify compete when Apple can charge the same monthly price, but not have a 30% penalty for subscription costs? If you don’t see that as an anti-competitive, you need to put down the kool-aid.

There’s a reason Apple is growing their services decision. The margin is incredibly high, and you know Tim loves his margins. It’s why the MacBook doesn’t have a port that literally every other device on the market has.

Nobody is saying Apple and Google shouldn’t make a profit off of the App Store, but when you start taxing 30% of every transaction and subscription, it becomes an issue. Apple innovated that trend, Google is just now following along because... why wouldn’t you.

You do realize that Google’s been taking 30% for ages? And that Apple’s 30% has been the same since the beginning? And that it’s only ever went down? As an iOS developer myself, I’m not complaining. Heck, it’s the chance to get an app onto MILLIONS of devices. You don’t get that chance often.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

I posted this in an earlier thread and am reposting it here for discussion.

I feel that developers by and large underestimate just how much of their revenue come from Apple’s in-app payments being so easy and trusted.

Yes, they put in a lot of time and effort creating great apps for consumers, but setting aside household brands like Netflix or Spotify, I don’t think they would have as much business if consumers had to resort to the old way of navigating to an external website and keying in their credit card details.

Apple has made this possible thanks to their having aggregated the best customers under one platform (thanks to the iphone) and having their credit card details on hand (thanks to iTunes) while making it extremely secure and easy to purchase apps, as well as delete them or cancel subscriptions as desired (thanks to the effort that goes into maintaining and curating the App Store, and features like Touch ID), which in turn leads to users being more amenable to purchasing and downloading new apps. Because the whole process is just so frictionless.

So at the end of the day, I dare say that 70% of the larger pie that Apple enables because of the App Store is still more than 100% of whatever slice they would have carved out based on their own merit. This is the value that Apple brings to the table, and they are absolutely justified in demanding a cut for their role in allowing app developers to earn more than they otherwise would have on their own.

In Microsoft’s situation, they would likely not be able to grow the pie the way Apple has done, or go as good a job maintaining the App Store like Apple, which in turn means that Microsoft will have done even less to deserve a 30% cut than Apple.

The two scenarios are nothing alike.

Nah, this is 2020 mate, we are all used to purchasing stuff online from all over the place. It's no big deal. And besides, no one would care about what Apple charged if it was possible to have alternate stores, or just to purchase from anywhere on the web (just like you can on macOS). Then you would have other big names open stores, and people could trust them too (or not, as is their whim). There would still be an Apple iOS store, but also an Amazon, google, MS, Epic, etc iOS stores. There would be competition, and thus developers could choose any or all of the stores that had the prices/terms that they liked. Or developers could skip them all and just sell direct from their own website. Individual end users could decided which of those they trusted (just like macOS users do). Some would stick to just the Apple store (just like some macOS users do). I have a strong hunch that this will be the end result of the Apple/Epic battle.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

It's interesting that Google can charge the 30% and the internet for the most part remains quiet, but tech sites, news and various other information sites make it to seem that Apple is the only bad guy here and is the only one charging 30%. SMH

Google Play isn't a monopoly though. Every Android app developer can sell their apps without needing the Google Play store. If the Apple store wasn't a monopoly, then there wouldn't currently be a fuss about it. Same as the macOS Apple store, no one cares because it isn't a monopoly.

 

[Maconplasma]

Google Play isn't a monopoly though. Every Android app developer can sell their apps without needing the Google Play store. If the Apple store wasn't a monopoly, then there wouldn't currently be a fuss about it. Same as the macOS Apple store, no one cares because it isn't a monopoly.

Nah. If developers were perfectly successful without the Google Play and iOS App Store they wouldn't be on either platform. They can choose not to develop for iOS. They aren't be forced to, so there's no monopoly from Apple. You're using that term completely wrong.

 

[Wahlstrm]

I can’t help thinking that in basically every other industry producers would be jumping with joy if they could get 70% or the final retail price..

A lot of things available at retail is marked up by 100-200%, so when customers spend a $100 in the store the producer behind the product best case made somewhere between $25-$50..

Reason they do this is because it’s usually better to to make $7 x 1 000 000 than $15 x 25 000..

 

[Abazigal]

Nah, this is 2020 mate, we are all used to purchasing stuff online from all over the place. It's no big deal. And besides, no one would care about what Apple charged if it was possible to have alternate stores, or just to purchase from anywhere on the web (just like you can on macOS). Then you would have other big names open stores, and people could trust them too (or not, as is their whim). There would still be an Apple iOS store, but also an Amazon, google, MS, Epic, etc iOS stores. There would be competition, and thus developers could choose any or all of the stores that had the prices/terms that they liked. Or developers could skip them all and just sell direct from their own website. Individual end users could decided which of those they trusted (just like macOS users do). Some would stick to just the Apple store (just like some macOS users do). I have a strong hunch that this will be the end result of the Apple/Epic battle.

Epic cannot win its legal fight with Apple. They thought they could sway Apple with developer (and consumer) opinion and get Apple to acquiesce over the bad PR their lawsuit supposedly wrought.

But as I stated above, consumers largely don’t care about a 30% tax they will never see or feel. I don’t think that app prices would decrease because any developer worth his salt prices them at a level to maximise revenue, because software doesn’t incur any marginal costs.

Likewise, users don’t actually dislike closed ecosystems. If anything, I will argue that the iphone is as popular as it is partly due to the locked-down nature of the iOS App Store being a trusted marketplace for users to download apps from. And the App Store doesn’t exist to serve developers; it exists for us consumers.

If it were as simple as what you stated, Epic wouldn’t be suing Google as well (since Google does allow sideloading). If Epic cared about doing the right thing, they wouldn’t have flaunted App Store rules so blatantly and flagrantly, leading the judge to rule that this whole mess was entirely of Epic’s own making.

To sum it up, I don’t think current anti-trust arguments against Apple are holding up to scrutiny. Not by Epic, not by this new coalition I am happily dubbing the “suicide squad”. Epic is fighting an impossible battle, and they are going to lose, now that Apple has dug in their heels, counter-sued Epic, shows absolutely no signs of relenting, and is happy to drag it out for as long as needed considering the utter lack of backlash over the removal of Fortnite on its platform.

Developers can only hope that this whole saga doesn’t sour the goodwill that Apple still has for them. For when Epic loses the lawsuit (and they will), the consequences will be dire for the entire app ecosystem, because Apple will see this victory as evidence that they were right all along, and have even less motivation to want to make concessions to developers or accommodate them. Not when they have been declared to be the rightful law of the land.

Epic will lose, and developers can only hope there will still be a status quo for them to return to at the end of all this.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Google Play isn't a monopoly though.

Google has a 100% monopoly on the Google Play Store.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Google has a 100% monopoly on the Google Play Store.

The Google Play Store isn't a platform. "Android" is the platform. Google does not have a 100% monopoly on Android software.

 

[The_Gream]

Apple led the way with customer hostile practices like taking away upgradability, I/O and headphone jacks, now it’s leading the way with developer hostile tactics like wanting a tax on all transactions on its platform, not just app purchases.

Imagine having a Windows tax for every online software and service purchase.

It’s free money for nothing, so if Apple can do it I guess it makes sense for Google to enforce the same.

It is not a tax - it is a service fee. Please learn the difference between the two.